The first rule about a black woman’s hair is you don’t talk about a black woman’s hair. And the second rule is you don’t ever touch a black woman’s hair without getting written permission first.
BEN AARONOVITCHMy dad once told me that the secret to a happy life was never to start something with a girl unless you were willing to follow wherever it led. It’s the best piece of advice he has ever given me, and probably the reason I was born.
More Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you’ve generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life – like drinking and sleeping, and if you’re lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice.
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If you ask any police officer what the worst part of the job is, they will always say breaking bad news to relatives, but this is not the truth.
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And once they start to think about the consequences, they almost always calm down. Unless they’re drunk, of course. Or stoned. Or aged between fourteen and twenty-one. Or Glaswegian.
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On the plus side, there were no rioters in sight but on the minus side this was probably because everywhere I looked was on fire.
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Somebody doesn’t know they’re not in Kansas anymore,’ said Stephanopoulos.
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He was calling it an atonic seizure because, even if he didn’t know why it had happened, it was important to give it a cool name.
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The media are doing this, not because they have a sinister motive, but because they love to feel that they are influencing events. That’s why they hate politicians so much, because politicians have direct power and they do not.
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It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.
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Landscaping is the great cardinal sin of modern architecture. It’s not your garden, it’s not a park – it’s a formless patch of grass, shrubbery and the occasional tree that exists purely to stop the original developer’s plans from looking like a howling concrete wilderness.
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Conflict resolution,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry, they also teach us how to beat people with phone books and the ten best ways to plant evidence.
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…good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport – like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.
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I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police “first greeting”. “Oi!” I said “What do you think you’re doing?
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In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.
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The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organisation and as such rejects totally the notion of an officer class.
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Actually I’d always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the commissioner called him on the bat phone and summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale – to the Jag mobile.
BEN AARONOVITCH